Let’s dare to be honest about charter schools. There is no “testable” benefit. Which is to say that testing tells us the same thing about any school environment. Kids, as humans, grow and develop variably, that poverty deadens living and this includes “intelligence” as part of overall health. What is a charter for? To create […]

In a recent “rant” about Indiana’s “testing regime” and its instrument of student “achievement” measurement, the I-STEP, posted on the blog page of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education, the Chair of the Monroe County and Southern Indiana chapter, Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer , wrote something that struck me as extremely instructive and worth discussing. First though, […]

Yesterday Steve at School Matters offered a post on Indy Mayor Greg Ballard’s decision to revoke TPS’s Charter (see Doug Martin’s thorough account here). I anticipated trouble by the title alone: Choice vs. standards at the Indianapolis Project School. Is that what this is about? It got worse. Stayed that way and ended that way. Steve maintained […]

When the Michelle Rhee/Betsy Devos-endorsed Pennsylvania governor, Tom Corbett, slashed $1.1 billion in educational funding over the last two years, he was merely continuing the disaster capitalism agenda against Philadelphia schools which began in 1998, when Act 46 passed. As retaliation against Philadelphia Public Schools’ superintendent David Hornbeck for threatening to close down the entire […]

The population of the US seems to be experiencing a kind of national awakening regarding the harsh and endemic inequalities of our “Us vs Them” economic reality. Though it seems possible that our bail-out and bubble-induced slogans of solidarity will fade into our historical moment to be studied by the future (should there be one […]

Readers of Errant musings know that my primary focus seems to always have a common theme: the loss of local human good to the abstractions of wealth and power. We are seeing a very rapid decline in social goods “produced” by human economy replaced rapidly and without check by the externally and mechanically produced “cultural” […]

This from a piece in the the Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY and Southern Indiana) titled “Bill would give Indiana parents ability to convert schools to charters,” about the so-called “Parent Trigger.” As a nod to my favorite local school board member (you know who you are), I wish this were about Parent Tiggers. That would make […]

Just read these two pieces and see if you need much more to understand the reality of what “loosing” the beast upon the prey that is your public schools, and by very near and dear extension, your children, OUR children, OUR communities. First, from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch an editorial (full of real facts and […]

“It rocks the core of education and what we’ve been accustomed to. From the changes in collective bargaining to teacher/principal evaluations, merit pay and changes in the immigration laws, it’s just been one thing after another. We’ve had a ton of changes thrown at us at one time. We will all have to roll up […]